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Vietnam-made goods taking root in rural areas
After a lot of efforts to get Vietnam-made goods to rural areas as export markets narrowed, many made-in-Vietnam products are becoming familiar to rural consumers.
New market discovered
With the support of business assistance clubs and consultancy organisations, enterprises have been bringing goods to rural areas in the most common and friendly ways.
Sales on market days have been so high sometimes that even producers have been surprised. In Tra Vinh province, for example, 23 enterprises sold 780 million dong worth of goods in two trade fairs.
Luong Van Vinh, Director of My Hao Company, specialising in making cleaning liquids, has been selling goods in Bac Giang province since June. The company found a distributor in Luc Ngan district.
Vinh said he still cannot understand why the company’s sales director in charge of the northern market did not recognise the potential of the market before.
“In fact, we had a distributor in Bac Giang province already, but the capability of bringing goods to more distant areas to sell was limited,” Vinh said. “The existence of another distributor in Luc Ngan will not only help sell My Hao products in the area, but also help bring goods to neighbouring areas as well.”
Nguyen Huu Duc, Marketing Director of Nutifood, related that high sales in Cam Ranh town in Khanh Hoa province even surprised local distributors. They have made contact with local sellers which will later help them cut expenses.
Focusing on distribution
According to Vu Kim Hanh, Director of BSA, a business research and support centre, at first, enterprises brought goods to rural areas to sell just to learn more about the market. Later on, they were determined to cement their positions in the market, realising that developing distribution networks was vital.
In Bac Giang province, Chi Thanh Plastics Company has found 15 petty merchants to form a distribution network. Kim Hang, a producer of aluminum goods, has also found new sales agents since it initiated its sales campaign.
Vinatex, a garment distribution chain, is now moving ahead with a plan to open a supermarket in Cam Ranh town.
The initial achievements obtained by enterprises prove that rural areas are markets with great potential which have never received deserved investment.
“Rural consumers have been swindled for many years. Low-quality goods with no clear origin have been sold here for many years, since local consumers could not access information,” Hanh said.
“They did not think that Vietnam-made products could be so plentiful and have such high quality,” she added, and said expanding the rural market means driving back low-quality products.
Duc said that price remains the biggest thing that rural consumers are interested in. As incomes have been decreasing, consumers tend to cut spending and tend to purchase low-cost products with high quality. He added that in order to maintain a demand for its products, Nutifood has no other choice than try to reduce production costs by having simpler package designs.
Enterprises have decided that they need to develop products suitable to rural areas. Moreover, Vinh said that producers should think of giving support to regional distributors in transport costs, so as to ensure that local consumers can have the products at the same prices as in HCM City.
Above all, creating confidence and the habit of using made in Vietnam goods for rural consumers will take a certain amount of time and appropriate advertising.
51 billion dong for domestic sales promotion
The Ministry of Industry and Trade has released a circular stipulating the building up and implementation of the programme on promoting domestic trade.
The Prime Minister has approved 51 billion dong for the programme on domestic trade promotion in 2009. The sum of money will be used to subsidise 100 percent of the expenses for activities aiming to support the business circle (making surveys and learning about the market…).
Moreover, businesses will also be given up to 70 percent of total expenses to conquer the domestic market.
The programme will kick off in August and last one year.
VietNamNet, TT
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